Episode details

Radio 4,01 Jun 2012,5 mins
Catherine and Liz: When Dad and Mum were Priest and Nun
The Listening ProjectAvailable for over a year
Fi Glover presents Radio 4's series capturing the nation in conversation: today Catherine and Liz, friends who met at an exhibition of religious art, their interest - and friendship - inspired by both growing up in strongly religious families. Liz's father had spent time in a seminary before he married; Catherine's father and mother were a Catholic priest and nun when they met. The friends discuss the impact this had on Catherine's upbringing and her current relationship with the Catholic church. The Listening Project is a new initiative for Radio 4 that aims to offer a snapshot of contemporary Britain in which people across the UK volunteer to have a conversation with someone close to them about a subject they've never discussed intimately before. The conversations are being gathered across the UK by teams of producers from local and national radio stations who facilitate each encounter. Every conversation - they're not BBC interviews, and that's an important difference - lasts up to an hour, and is then edited to extract the key moment of connection between the participants. Many of the long conversations are being archived by the British Library which they will use to build up a collection of voices capturing a unique portrait of the UK in the second decade of the millennium. You can upload your own conversations or just learn more about The Listening Project by visiting bbc.co.uk/listeningproject Producer: Mohini Patel.
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